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If You Get Rich, You Won't Quit Working For Long (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes: You'd think striking it suddenly rich would be the ultimate ticket to freedom. Without money worries, the world would be your oyster. Perhaps you'd champion a worthy cause, or indulge a sporting passion, but work? Surely not. However, remaining gainfully employed after sudden wealth is more common than you'd think. After all, there are numerous high-profile billionaires who haven't called it quits despite possessing the luxury to retire, including some of the world's top chief executives, such as Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. But it turns out, the suddenly rich who aren't running companies are also loathe to quit, even though they have plenty of money. That could be, in part, because the link between salary and job satisfaction is very weak. According to a meta-analysis by University of Florida business school professor Timothy Judge and other researchers, there's less than a 2% overlap between the two factors. In the long run, we derive job satisfaction from non-monetary sources, which include positive peer relationships, the ability to work on meaningful projects and even leadership opportunities.
I suggest you watch that last Family Guy episode where Stewie takes a job at a printing company. That's the average persons job. No rich person would tolerate that kind of work for 5 minutes. What rich people call work the rest of us call "a dream come true." I'll happily do Jeff Bezo's job for 25 cents an hour.
I'll be the exception.
I don't know if sudden wealth has that effect, but in the interest of science, I'm willing to find out.
Though I would probably switch careers, or potentially simply get involve more in my hobbies, or else pursue things I've not had time to. But in the end, I'd definitively still be 'working' - I would just have the luxury of choosing exactly what that work would be, at any moment.
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This is quite obvious and has been covered since the days of ancient Greece.
I've said it before.
Humans need to feel love, a sense of competence and a sense of purpose.
The amount of money you get beyond roughly 75 000 Euros per year has near to no influence on your happiness.
In fact, if you tie your happiness to riches, you'll get depressed quite soon, even if you don't lose your wealth.
I'd probably work even more if I'd win the lottery.
Albeit on projects that I fund myself because I care about them.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
There's research that shows that there's a point where your salary desire is sated, and more money while nice ceases to be the primary reason you work. In other words, once people are compensated at 100k/year they are more likely to be motivated by ping-pong tables and free soda type perks than 101k/year, even if the 1k is worth more.
Obviously, the majority of people have not hit that level yet.
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This is exactly true. I do many things for a buck, but I wouldn't do what I presently do. I would like to think I'd be productive and busy, but I would be doing the parts of the job I want to do, and either abdicating or paying someone to do the nasty stuff.
The salary thing is a red herring. HR usually uses that to justify low (i.e. "market") wages. But they neglect engagement and retention. When paid market wages I tend to optimize the "life" part of work/life balance, and consider my job to be fairly disposable (i.e. I won't put up with a lot of crap, and don't think twice about calling a moron a moron). If I were rich I would never take such a job, which is ironic considering I don't need the money, but such places tend to have very bottom line attitudes about the parts of the job I enjoy too.
I don't think you can retire on $500k, especially given the fact that the government is getting ready to slash the social safety net and SS and Medicare. I don't think I'd attempt it for less than $2m. Remember you are going to be on the hook for your own health care.
This is a common story, particularly among those who have been poor their entire life. It's all down to a mind set. If you have never had much money, money is something that you spend. Either simply on living, or on luxuries before it gets eaten away by basic expenses. Money is not something you consider long-term and save or invest. But if you're used to having money above that of living expenses, money is something you are used to planning about. You don't go straight out and spend it.
It's about doing what I want to work on. If I were suddenly flush in cash I could go back to school for stuff I want to learn, afford to build a full shop with the tools I want to work with, and not worry that "failure=lose house" if I wanted to start my own business
If I ever won the lottery, I'd still go to work every day, and make sure my work colleagues knew that I'd won the lottery and didn't actually need to ever work again.
Why? Because it'd really piss them off.
Summation 2
If I hit the lottery and had enough money where I'd never need to work again, I'd leave work so fast I'd leave skid marks out the door!!
I frankly don't know if I'd even notify them I was leaving I might just never return....
Ok, I'd tell them, I'm not *that* much an ass, but it illustrates my feelings.
I work for one and ONLY ONE reason, to make money to support the style of life I enjoy when not working. Period, cut dried simple.
If I had enough money to never have to work again, I would not. I have PLENTY of things I'd rather be doing with my time. I have lots of hobbies....I'd like to spend time traveling, doing photography, chasing women, etc.
I just don't get it why anyone would still work if they didn't have to.
I've heard of people that for some reason, associate their self identity with their work...and I've actually seen this happen, often to older men who retire and just seem to lose part of themselves. I thought, however that this was mainly the product of older generations.
But my work, and I made a very decent living, is purely mercenary. I don't care about the work, other than doing it of as high quality I can to get paid for it. If the customer is happy, then they pay me and keep me around.That's it. I have no love for my work or vocation.
I'd certainly NOT be doing any of this at all if I didn't have to do it for a living.
I just can't imagine the mindset of someone, that could not find the world entertaining enough, to find things to do if they had their fiscal needs met for a lifestyle they like, and not have to work any more.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I have been without work for 2 years in a row twice and the only reason I went back to work was money. I would have had money, I sure would have not gone to work. That does not mean that I was sitting on my sofa eating nachos. I just did more of what I wanted to do when I wanted to it.
Ask people what they do in their free time and they will come up with "Movies, hanging out with friends and fitness". None of these are things you can do all day for a longer period of time (months on end) and the friends part will be limited as they work and will not be available most of the time.
So I do believe that many people would go back to work, but not because of money, but because of boredom and lack of fantasy.
So what did I do? I spend a lot more time with Open Source. No, I do not want to do that as a job as I would want to do my hooby in my free time.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
You know, a few years ago, I had about a 7 month gap in between contracting gigs.
My typical day was, wake up, walk the dog....jump on my motorcycle and hit the gym for a couple of hours.
I'd come back home, have some lunch, look for jobs about an hour or so, and then often after showering and dressing, I'd jump on my motorcycle and run around town (living in New Orleans). I spent days seeing the art museums, WW2 museum, all sorts of neat things. I might have left out earlier and met friends for lunch somewhere....
Usually by about 3-4pm, I'd usually meet some friends at one of our MANY fine drinking establishments, for a few...and then come home, etc.
For 7 months, lather, rinse, repeat. I had NO problem finding things to do.
I thought to myself, "Man, if I won the lottery, this would likely be a large part of my life, and hell, if I got tired of this, I could always take a vacation.
Seriously....how could anyone get bored with all the money they ever need, and a bit of imagination?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I find comments (and internet articles) like this interesting. There are so many people out there who are dirt poor and somehow manage to live through retirement. I know that people in the world are increasingly more material and require more money but somehow, the majority are getting by without having millions or even 100s of thousands saved for retirement.
The same thing goes with the cost of raising kids. Studies will tell you that you need tons of money to raise a kid but somehow, my parents raised 9 of us and they didn't spend the millions that studies suggest they would have needed.
How much money does it take to retire (or raise a kid)? It costs however much you want to spend on it. (Which is different than however much the next guy is going to spend).
for about 17 years that was my case.
I recently was laid off as my team moved to Israel (among other things) but in fact I felt like I was paid money to go play all day.
I only *worked* maybe 4-8 hours a month (meetings... ick), the rest of the time I did things I found so engaging and fun that I would often forget to take breaks, go to lunch, go home... I literally had to set an alarm on my computer to remind me of such things.
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If I hit the lottery and had enough money where I'd never need to work again, I'd leave work so fast I'd leave skid marks out the door!! ... I work for one and ONLY ONE reason, to make money to support the style of life I enjoy when not working. ... I have lots of hobbies....I'd like to spend time traveling, doing photography, chasing women, etc. ... I just don't get it why anyone would still work if they didn't have to. ... I have no love for my work or vocation.
There are plenty of reasons to continue working.
Let's say you win $5M. After taxes you get about $2.5M. Assuming you're in your 30's that gives you 50K per year, except that when you account for inflation you are probably closer to 30K or 20K per year when you get old. Which will suck. So even if you get lucky and have an enormous windfall, you will want to spend it slowly. Maybe pay off your current house or get a slight upgrade, and perhaps step up to a 2017 model year car. You'll want to spend it slow enough that when you reach old age you can still pay for everything. Financial planning is important.
As for reasons to continue working, you get social aspects, there are benefits like insurance benefits in countries that have private insurance (an area where USA sucks), there is a constant mental challenge. The work environment is not only about income. There are many mental / psychological / social benefits as well.
I also know several people who became rich through various means. None of them work full time or put in overtime, they end up working 20 to 30 hours each week, and they take frequent extended vacations, but they are still working. You mention photography. If that is your true passion in life then it might become your new part-time job.
If you're looking for a notable example of this, Minecraft's Notch, Markus Persson, wrote that after becoming a multi-billionaire selling Minecraft his life became a living hell. His social life was destroyed because money effected everything, he didn't have his work or his life passion, he spends time waiting for his friends (who have jobs and families) to have time, and he occasionally writes here on reddit about his struggles to keep his life interesting or feeling motivated to keep his life filled with interesting things.
Personally, if somehow my bank account had 9 or 10 figures I know I would still keep my job, but instead of a 40 hour work week it would probably become a MWF 10-3 kind of job. Enough that I could keep my sanity and my social benefits, and enough it would still make me emotionally value my free time.
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I hit the proverbial startup lottery to the tune of ~$12M two years ago (was very early employee at a company that eventually IPOed). I'm still gainfully employed in the same job I had before. Dunno what else to do with myself. Have a wife and kids and just don't like the prospect of quitting and doing fuck all. Might eventually start my own company at some point, but haven't figured out what I'd do yet.
To be honest, you'd be surprised how much things go back to normal in terms of your psychology and long-term plans if you can make it through the first year post-windfall without doing anything foolish (which I mostly did).
I can honestly say I'm no happier or fulfilled now than I was before this happened, though I live in a slightly larger house that I own (instead of rent) and I drive a newer car. The financial things I worry about are shifted as I no longer have to worry about saving for college or a house, but all the other things in my life are mostly unchanged and still present challenges (e.g. getting along with spouse, worrying about kids development, losing weight, staying healthy).
Now that I've been on both sides, I can say that money doesn't solve a lot of problems, but when we don't have much, we tend to assume it will solve more problems than it actually does.
This is kind of the reason we dont like hiring people with family money. They have no commitment to the job. We need to be able to plan on the person being around to do their job when the going gets tough.
In other words, we want them desperate, not invested!
Let's say you win $5M. After taxes you get about $2.5M.
You take it as an annuity and record it as income of at least $18,000 plus 2% inflation (so at least 40,000 over 40 years). That $18,000 goes into a 401(k), either by satellite employment or by creating a sole proprietorship and financing yourself. With an SP, you can put up to $120k into your 401(k) as a 100% match of your declared salary to yourself.
When you reach retirement age and take it out, you pay retirement-age taxes on it. That's usually less, notably because that $18,000 is the top of your tax bracket, and it comes off the bottom of an inflated bracket. For us non-lotto-winners making e.g. $60k-$100k, the top $18k faces 25% in Federal taxes excluding social security; in retirement, the bottom tax bracket will be $20k instead of $9k for today's new entrants, so they'll put $18k in and save 25% on it, then take $50k out at a rate of $12k x 0% (standard deduction, single, 2060) + $20k x 10% + $18k x 15%.
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There are so many people out there who are dirt poor and somehow manage to live through retirement.
How many of those people deliberately planned to live "dirt poor" in retirement? Not many.
After my mother passed away from breast cancer, my father sold everything and bought a trailer home for $10,000 and paid $400 per month for trailer spot. He lived on his $1,000 per month pension, banked his $1,000 per month Social Security benefits for eight years. When he was diagnosed with throat cancer and died six weeks later, all the money he saved from Social Security paid his hospital bills and funeral expenses.
For my father, this was an ideal retirement as he died with no debts and wasn't a financial burden to the family. For my older brother, he thought it was embarrassing that his step-father died poor from not pursuing the American Dream of having it all. For me, I thought my father was a perfect example of living a modest lifestyle.